Dieser Blogbeitrag von Nancy Hillis, deren Arbeit ich erst vor etwa einem Monat entdeckt habe, hat mich sehr berührt. Ich fasse den englischen Text sehr frei hier zusammen:
Intuitive Linien, gestische Ausdrücke, Formen und Farbfelder - und plötzlich ist das Bild mit den Augen der Bewertung chaotisch, wütend, hässlich - mir nicht vertraut. Und der Impuls zu Gesso zu greifen, und all` diese Malspuren auszulöschen, kann sehr heftig sein. Dieses Auslöschen ist jedoch auch ein Ablehnen von Teilen von sich selbst...
Die "hässlichen Gemälde" bedrohen uns, weil sie ungewohnt, widerspenstig und ohne unsere Zustimmung auftauchen. Die Kontrolle wird untergraben. Das Neue macht Angst, kann unvorhersehbare Konsequenzen nach sich ziehen, ist unberechenbar und darum schätzen wir es nicht. Wir sind geblendet davon, wie unsere Kreationen auszusehen haben - und dieser ungebetene Besucher soll nicht Teil des Bildes sein!
Nancy Hillis schreibt in ihrem Blogbeitrag jedoch dazu ganz klar: Die "hässlichen Gemälde" sind lebenswichtig! Viel wichtiger als wir erahnen können... Sie sind die Grundlage unserer aufstrebenden Arbeit. Primitive Formen, die nach Luft schnappen, weil sie verzweifelt versuchen, geboren zu werden.
Die "hässliche Malerei" ist also die rohe Essenz einer neuen, experimentellen Arbeit - sie kann der nächste Schritt sein oder eine Weiterentwicklung, die ohne diese neuen Malspuren nicht möglich würde - und auch nicht vorhersehbar war!!
Lassen wir uns also Raum schaffen für alles - für Bilder die uns freuen, für Bilder die uns bedrohlich vorkommen. Gerade die ungewohnten Malspuren, Farben Formen, Kompositionen enthalten Geschenke - auch wenn wir uns dabei unwohl fühlen. Sie erweitern unsern Horizont, lassen Neues entstehen und machen uns lebendig.
Hier ein Bild, das nach einer intensiven Auseinandersetzung mit diesem Blogbeitrag entstanden ist. Nach langer Zeit `mal wieder im Grossformat 70 x 100 cm, vielleicht hässlich, chaotisch, verletzlich, wütend - aber es hat total Spass gemacht, mich an dieses Ausfliessen-lassen zu erinnern!
I've been thinking about so called "ugly" paintings lately.I see artists in workshops and classes excited with the beginnings of their paintings...they love activating the canvas with stream of consciousness mark making or with intuitive gestural expressions/shapes/color fields...
...only to struggle with the middle of their paintings.
In particular, I see artists grappling with the issue of what I call the "ugly" painting...this is when you create a painting you don't like...a painting that feels chaotic, frenzied, fussy or messy. A painting you deem unfamiliar and unrecognizableAnd your impulse is to cover up the marks or obliterate the painting with gesso or throw the whole thing out.
Yet this amounts to a full scale disavowal and rejection of your newly emerging work.
It's akin to disowning parts of yourself...the so called orphaned-off self which I've written about in Making Room For Your Orphaned Self.
Why do I say this?
I believe "ugly" paintings threaten us because they're unfamiliar, unruly and emerge unbidden without our consent.They subvert our need for control.It's like experiencing a mutation causing unforeseeable consequences.
They're unpredictable, unfamiliar, unrecognizable...and different than our recent work...
We don't value them...and perhaps that's why they seem "ugly".
We're blinded by our current mindset of what our art is supposed to look like. There's supposed to be some kind of logical connection between what we created yesterday and what we create today...
And yet these expressions seem to come out of nowhere...threatening to undermine the thread of consistency in our creations. We can't make sense of them. We have ideas of what we envision as a lovely painting and this unwanted visitor is not part of that picture.
I suggest to you that your "ugly" paintings are vitally important...in fact, probably more important by several orders of magnitude than the work you like and valueWhy do I say this? How can this possibly be?I say this because I believe these "ugly" paintings are the nascent underpinnings of your emerging work. They're primitive forms gasping for breath as they're desperately trying to be birthed...
And if you squash them or throw them out...what's at risk?
You risk missing the moment of discovering something heretofore invisible in YOU trying to become visibleYou may end up annihilating an entire future body of work...just because your current mindset can't see and therefore won't tolerate the possibilities for the future that this "ugly" piece holds.
This scenario plays out time and again and it's akin to the story of the chrysalis and the butterfly.
The Adjacent PossibleThere's a concept in evolutionary biology that's analogous to what happens to us on our artist's journey.
The idea of the adjacent possible is that the act of moving forward creates a new set of next steps that would've been difficult or impossible to predict beforehandJust as the chrysalis is the nascent form of the butterfly, the "ugly" painting is the raw essence of new, experimental work...
It's the next step...the adjacent possible...in the evolution of your emerging body of work.
And the adjacent possible is vital to your evolution as an artist!So if you crush the chrysalis...the butterfly never emerges...it never lives.
And so I ask you this...
Will you allow yourself to paint "ugly" paintings? Will you make room for work that's trying to be expressed but that part of you immediately and unthinkingly rejects? Will you permit it to live anyway?Will you create the space for deep experimentation...allowing unknown and unfamiliar images/shapes/marks/gestures/colors/compositions to emerge even though they feel uncomfortable?
And when the "ugly" painting emerges....will you value it? Will you see that "ugly" paintings come into your life bearing gifts if only you'll receive them?
Let's make room for both the paintings we love and the paintings that scare us...the ones we see as threatening...Let's make room for "ugly" paintings so we can create the deepest work of our lives
Much love,
Nancy
http://nancyhillis.com/